Moeen Ali says lack of confidence in team has led to dramatic demise of defending champions
ESPNcricinfo Staff
Josh Buttler bore the brunt of England’s World Cup capitulation as captain, citing his own form as a key concern in their failed campaign.
A 33-run defeat by Australia in Ahmedabad sealed the fate of the defending champions with no hope now of advancing to the semi-finals after suffering their sixth loss from seven matches in the tournament.
Buttler cheaply beat Cameron Green off the bowling of Adam Zaba, who claimed 3 for 21 to be named Man of the Match as Australia moved one more win away from the knockouts. Buttler’s dismissal capped a terrific tournament in which he has scored 43, 20, 9, 15, 8, 10 and now 1 – a total of 106 runs at 15.14 from 113 balls.
“I think it was the right shot to play, the execution obviously was fruitless,” Butler said in the postgame presentation. “I want to be positive and continue the game. I felt it was a moment to try to throw something back at the opponent.
“But yeah, I think my own form was the biggest concern. Going into the tournament I felt in a great place, so I didn’t play as well as I could and in such an important role that I play for the team, poor me. The performance with the bat really hurt us.”
But Butler said that had not shaken his belief, adding in his post-match press conference: “If I stop believing in myself, I’ve got to make sure I’m the last one to do that. give up on me much sooner than I will give up on myself.’
England have two more matches, against the Netherlands – with whom they are now vying for a place in the 2025 Champions Trophy – and Pakistan.
Their demise was dramatic, with the thrilling home triumph of 2019 somehow still fresh in the mind because of that memorable final. However, it is now also a distant memory, given that the uncertainty with which England played in India bears little resemblance to the self-assured attitude that has characterized English white-ball cricket for the better part of a decade. .
“It’s definitely a low point,” Butler said. “I’ve had a few, but yes, certainly as a captain, to be stuck in that position when you arrive in India with very high hopes is incredibly difficult, incredibly disappointing and yes, it hurts a lot.
“We certainly didn’t do ourselves justice. Going into the tournament, we thought we could really go for it and push whoever it was until the end.
“It’s incredibly hard to get to those highs, absolutely. Everyone knows how much hard work it takes. And even when you’re down, there’s so much hard work that goes into it. So we feel let down. We let down the people at home, the people who they support us and you wear it on your shoulders.”
Moeen Ali, whose innings of 42 along with half-centuries from Ben Stokes and Dawid Malan gave England some hope of a somewhat improved performance, pointed to a lack of confidence within the squad as key to England’s poor performance overall.
“I’m disappointed as a player and we just weren’t good enough in this tournament from the start,” Moeen told Sky Sports. “Today showed the lack of confidence in the team. I thought we were a bit better tonight and had the best conditions and we know we should have won that game but these things happen in cricket.
“I think we probably tried to do too much and, as players in particular, we try to be really aggressive and then try to absorb some pressure, but we just didn’t get it done. Even tonight, every time we tried, we were in a position where we were, “ok we’re doing well here”, we just lost two wickets quickly and then we have to try to rebuild and then we lost two wickets again.
“It’s a bit of a student fault but these things happen when you don’t have confidence as a side. And we can’t keep saying we don’t have confidence. We have to do something about it. We tried. I think we tried as a group of players to do that . And sometimes you get a little inside as a person on the sidelines and it’s never that good for the team.”
This lack of confidence Moeen believes led to poor execution.
“As a group of players and with the management we tried to say, at times, ‘let’s go out and play our way’ and sometimes when we lost the game, [said] “Let’s go out there and be tougher, go harder,’ which is what we’ve always tried to do, and we just didn’t have the confidence,” he said. then go out and do it. I don’t think we did.
“Lack of runs, lack of grooves, not fielding as well as we know we can … when you don’t get runs as an individual, you get a little bit embarrassed about your own performances and you can get a little bit inside, and I think we did that. In the past, I just, I think we stuck our chests out and said ‘guys, I’m going out’ and tried to take it on, and we just didn’t ‘you didn’t.’